Every one of the fourth-graders in the media center at Lake Nokomis Community School is still. And quiet. Not a one of the 30 is whispering or giggling -- even though their instructor is waving his arms, making funny faces, doing anything to make them laugh or wiggle.
The "get the kids to crack up" drill may not be part of the curriculum, but artist Steve Busa uses it as an exercise on being focused. It's just one of the acting techniques he teaches on his weekly visits to the Minneapolis school.
Best known as the artistic director at Red Eye Theater in Minneapolis, Busa is one of a growing number of "artists in residence" who share their expertise with elementary and high school students statewide.
Although many schools have been forced to cut back on art programs and teachers to save money, Busa said art education is critical because it gives students different ways to learn.
"It takes them from the desk because not all kids are desk-learners," said Busa, who followed the focusing exercise with a tableau (essentially a living picture) in which the kids told the story of the tortoise and the hare.
Teacher Jennifer Delveaux said the exercises allow her quieter students to blossom. "Many very quiet and reserved students shine in tableaux, and their classmates make them feel good about opening up," she said.
Busa's work is coordinated through Arts for Academic Achievement (AAA), the Minneapolis Public Schools' program that brings trained teaching artists into classrooms. The organization, funded primarily through foundations and corporations, says its programs in visual art, dance, music and theater involved 17,000 students in the 2008-09 school year. Compas, a community arts organization based in St. Paul, and the Minnesota State Arts Board, a state agency that's charged with encouraging development of the arts, also have residence programs.
"We have people that specialize in poetry, mosaic art, songwriting, drama and on and on," said Dan Gabriel, director of arts programming for Compas.